Muse

All right, here are some more slang words you can use to sound cool. All right, first up, we have crim, short for criminal. The way you're eating that burrito is crim. All right, next up, we have straunt. Yo, babe, I just heard about this new Italian straunt down the street. We should go check it out. Next up, we have liquid laugh. This is Australian slang for boofing. Where's Will? He's out back having a liquid laugh. Then we have valdemode. It's a diabolical state of being. You went valdemode last night and got us kicked out of the bar. Finally, we have yondi. Far as hell. I'm not picking you up. You live yondi. T-B-T-L.

Guess what day it is. Guess what day it is.

It's Friday, Friday. Gonna get down on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to the weekend. Mmm. Ah. Gaspacho soup just burned my lips. The gazpacho? Yeah, it's been sitting out. It warmed up. It warmed up so much that it burned your lip. Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on fire. It's going to feel like your body's on fire. You don't have to make rude noises. That's all right. I don't mind. Laughter, a sure sign of a good time.

Hey, everybody stand by. Here we go again.

All right. Hello. Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Friday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live it's an audiophiles nightmare my name is luke burbank i am your host wow coming to you from the madrona hill studio perched high above the mighty columbia at least i'm assuming we're still perched high above the mighty columbia i cannot see it because we are enveloped in a cloud up here on the hill and it is raining i mean torrentially and it's uh didn't know you like to get wet though not a very nice friday weather wise but that did not stop me from pursuing my uh morning jog i did it on the treadmill doing my 75 hard ish we've gotten back on the water drinking project which did involve me needing to um end a too beautiful to biz meeting kind of abruptly yesterday and then relieve myself in the parking lot of the mall near where they were playing Megalopolis. So I'm still trying to figure out how to do this gallon of water a day without embarrassing situations like that. We are at episode 4,308 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. Nothing embarrassing is going to happen over the next hour. But I do have an update on the sound that I thought I might have recorded in the laundromat down in town of the door chime dying hey want to hear the most annoying sound in the world i tried to do an impression of it yesterday i don't think it was a great impression um i've been looking for the actual audio and we've got an update on that also i was very nervous yesterday while this guy was excavating the yard here to get ready for some more building projects he was doing some slab jacking slab jacking and the exact thing that i was worried about happening 100 happened you gotta be kidding me and now i am in xfinity hell which we'll talk about as well and we'll talk to this guy longest running cobra of the show may be best known for his depictions of the tall ships it's

his friday another day another victory for the og taking down the sweats the impostors among us

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I said something to you today as a podcast partner that Genevieve has been wishing, I would say to her, for years as a romantic partner. Okay. Which is, kiss me in the mouth, baby. No, I did think that was out of left field when you said that during the soundcheck. I said, let's do something fun for Halloween this year. Now, let's not get it twisted.

Yes, you did say that.

I don't mean dressing up or doing anything in my social life that would be considered fun. You've done your once-a-decade dress-up. That's right. You did it at the TBTL Live in Philly. Exactly. I got paid for that one, so that's why I did it. But I do think on TBTL this year, I was looking ahead on the calendar for some reason. I saw that Halloween is on a Thursday. You know, that's kind of, I mean, what do you say about that? It's the it's the weekend of the Friday of the middle week. It's the Friday of the middle week. So it's kind of, you know, Thursday, Halloween. I feel like we might be feeling a little festive or in the spooky season mood or whatever. So let's do something. The best I've come up with so far is let's get the listeners in on this. I want to hear spooky stories. I guess real life spooky stories, scary, actual scary things that have happened to people in their real lives. And then maybe we can.

share that on that thursday halloween episode i'm just trying to see what songs i might have that are in the public domain involving spooking and haunting and maybe i'll have to have uh i'll

have to have ai write us another hit song about halloween we got a very finger waggy um uh voicemail from a young person uh i think a young person i don't know um sounded like a young person saying that the uh and i don't know how to feel i i don't know that i'm necessarily siding with this person it just popped in my head but very disappointed in the use of ai programming on the show i think maybe out of a concern that it's you know it's we're not doing our part to preserve the work of artists in the world but the thing about meaning like songwriters or podcasters i think songwriters but the thing is like you and i the idea of to to actually like pay for a proper song that is published by a major publisher we're never we're never going out of our budget yes

exactly it's like remember who did we have on um like coldplay is not losing any money in their licensing deals because we're having ai write a pretend coldplay song exactly right and so i mean

And I do think it gets into some – do you remember we had on a former colleague of yours? You were a – I'm blanking on his name. I think it was one of the dinner guest guys. Oh, sure.

So that would have been either Brendan Francis Noonan or Rico Galliano.

I think it was Brendan because Brendan was working on that video series. And it was around the time that you and I first started actually having to really think about licensing costs for music because stuff was getting pulled. And you said, like, what does it cost, like $1,000 or something to, like, license a song for his online video series? He's like, are you kidding me? It was like tens of thousands of dollars to, like, license some bump-out music at the end of the show. Like, it's just a different, it's a completely different world. So, you know, there are, we will always look for opportunities to, like, work with listeners and the TVTL community to commission work when possible. but for the occasional goofball halloween song i just don't think that we're just not playing we're just not playing in those spaces like it's we don't have monster mash money around here

we don't even have monster mash 2 money i'm sure that they're even as we speak writing an updated monster mash to keep the uh you know keep the licensing money rolling in yeah and also i would say this and i don't want to sound defensive to this voicemail that i didn't even hear from a person who may or may not have been young but when we play the ai music it's generally speaking terrible i think if anything it sort of it kind of points points up the idea or or emphasizes that you know human musicians are still really where it's at like yes you know like like our philly song was just abjectly bad by the way i was thinking about that after i got

that voicemail yesterday maybe i was thinking about it i'm glad you did not end up playing that during the live show and it sounds like we were kind of ran out of time and also it sounds like the in-house sound was rough that that might not have played very well to the crowd it might not have been distinguishable even what the lyrics were because i i had one of those moments where i was going over the show in my head yesterday i was like oh we did that during sound check in philadelphia at the friend center but i don't think we ended up doing it for the actual show which i think was a really good call but yeah that's the thing like if we were

you mean this song andrew live from philly where the heart of country meets the beat i'm trying to think of the real artist who's being deprived right now it's

I mean, Bubba Sparks, maybe? Or big or rich? Some country kind of person. Maybe a Jelly Roll?

Or make some country twang with a bit of hip-hop fly. The irony was, no matter how much we mic-check, it did not sound so fine in the room.

Oh, I thought it sounded fly, but yes, it didn't sound fly or fine, I don't think. But it sounded great on the recording.

And we're getting lots of positive feedback about the show, so I feel okay about that.

Yeah, well, all I have to do is go on the microphone and whine and say, I'm not doing a good job. And then people will write in, Andrew, you're doing great, which is really how I get through life, and I appreciate that. But yeah, I think I understand it from somebody who might be looking at all of this AI stuff, and you can understandably see it as a bit of an existential threat. and a threat that we don't even fully understand. And I totally understand that. And I do think it's going to be very bad for artists. And I've used this example on the show before. I think the art...

I don't think it's going to put the people who are writing and recording number one bop hits on the radio. I think we're still going to have human beings doing that. I think it's much worse. I think it's going to be the in-between musicians who write music for car commercials. And they might not be household names, but they're able to actually— They're working musicians. They're working musicians who are able to work their craft, something they're good at, but then in an industry where they can actually get paid for it. Like we're going to see the, you know, the advertising agencies and the car companies and all the other brands when they start. And I'm sure they already have replacing human musicians with, you know, A.I. sound alikes, which is very much within the realm of possibility right now. And it's probably already being done. I understand why that is really a threat and a bummer. I I like you I don't want to sound super defensive about it but I don't think you and I laughing at ridiculous AI songs about well I mean I I gotta admit it really does capture the spirit of TVTL and the city of brotherly love and so in that one particular case that song really nailed it and I understand why that's kind of a threat but aside from that like us goofing around with it I don't think that's where I don't think that's where the major problem lies.

Yeah, I agree I do understand, like you said I think you used the right word, existential threat So I understand that feeling of If somebody did leave a slightly peeved voicemail I understand how they got there Because if you think about it too deeply It is very discomforting But yeah, I mean I don't think that Singing TBTL from Philly all night long Country beats and hip hop They're tapping on strong Will toast a yingling While the river rolls on through Live from the heart of Philly Bringing that down home groove I don't think that's taking any bread off of anybody's table

Sorry I was distracted for a moment there I was bringing that hometown groove And then I stopped paying attention to what you were saying

Franklin's ghost is watching with a glint in his eye Making music fusion under Philly's autumn sky We got the beats a-poppin' Guitar strings in the air Making magic on Broad Street Good vibes everywhere

Nobody knows what it means It's provocative

Alright Andrew, speaking of Journeys of sound And discovery, yesterday on the show You were talking about A stand-up comedian who had said that They kind of missed that experience Of a battery running down And the way that you would hear that Sort of, there would be an audible indication Of that happening

Let's say in your Walkman maybe Or even maybe your old Maybe bedside alarm clock If it was digital, like the strong buzzing sound might sound like a weak frog dying as your batteries peter out.

And nowadays, it doesn't really happen. It's very kind of on or off, particularly with our phones. In fact, I saw, of all people, Courtney Cox put a funny video out the other day where she was like living her normal life and then her phone dies. And she's like she's on a call with someone and then the phone dies. And then she has to plug it back in for it to charge up enough to get back on the call. and during that period of time she has a candle lit she's wearing like a little bonnet she's completely reverted to like Hester Prynne era 1800s or whatever which is what it feels like

she's doing like kind of TikTok bits sort of

this is the first I'd seen of it and I thought it was a good bit actually

that's fun, I kind of like that

yeah, I was impressed but that is, I mean, it is just the longest period of time is when you are somewhere and your phone dies And then you're charging it and you would think I'm hooking it up to a power source Now it's going to have power, now I can begin Using it again, but it needs to get It needs to internalize enough of the Charge to come back to life And that period of time can feel Very long, particularly if you were in a conversation So in response To your comment about batteries, I said Oh yeah, you know, I actually Go to this dry cleaner that has a very Very kind of depressing door chime Where you can hear the battery is dying And then I spent, I don't know if you edited this down, but I spent a good 45 minutes scrolling through my phone trying to find the video, and I could not. And then we got a very helpful tip from our friend, Mr. Robert Pape IV, Bobby Pape, on Instagram said, you know the way you find this kind of stuff is you search for it on the map, and then you just enhance, enhance, enhance, which I didn't even realize that was a thing. And I don't know if that applies to your particular phone, but it does work on my iPhone. So what you can do is, I know where this dry cleaner is, obviously, and then I just need to go to the map and then find any videos or photos at that location. So I did that this morning, Andrew, and guess what?

You found it?

No, no photos or videos at this location. And I was like, am I? Losing my mind? I know that I recorded this. And then I had a stroke of genius. And I remembered it was a voice memo. It was not a video on my phone. It was a voice memo. And then I went into the voice memos. And guess what I found, Andrew? Don't play it.

Don't play it, Luke. Don't play it.

Why don't play it?

Because we were going to do a side-by-side. Oh, do you have? Yeah, I asked you yesterday if you could like... know if you had edited that down yeah i was like can you do an approximation i said you know while we're while we're waiting for this can you can you do an approximation of the sound you did it a couple of times but i talked over most of it this is the only one we have in the clear by the way did i don't know if you saw the name of uh yesterday's uh episode but it was for whom the bell oh i love it so let's hear it i'm gonna play yours one more time and then please do and

And this has a little buildup, mine has a little, this is me like walking into the dry cleaner, so you hear me in the parking lot a little bit before you hear the noise that we're talking about.

Okay, here's what we're looking for again.

Okay, are you ready? Mm-hmm. Okay.

How'd I do? It's even better. That's so great. Do you want to hear it again? Yeah, I do.

Okay, sorry. I should have cut this extra noise off the top. You know? I mean, it's not bad. Not the worst, considering I'm doing that from memory from three months ago.

I like the way it's hitting, like, three notes at once, though. Is that a chord? Like, I don't know the words for that.

Yeah, what is the musical term for that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then, Andrew, I hear, what is the voice that I use to drop off dry cleaning? And is this how I sound in the world? This is also on the recording.

Hello.

Can I drop this off, please? What voice is that?

Can I drop this off, please? Yeah, it does sound like you're trying.

I'm old, Greg. I've got all things that are good.

It sounds like you're trying to, like, kind of, it does sort of sound like the cops are chasing you, and you're trying to do this as undercover as possible. You don't want anybody to remember you.

Yeah, I don't know. I wonder if it has to do with, there is a fairly pronounced language barrier. You know, I wonder if somehow in my mind, this makes the sort of English translation easier, which makes zero sense. But just listen to this.

Hello. Can I drop this off, please?

310. Oh, close. we got three. Yikes. I don't know, anyway,

I don't know what that voice was that I was using, but this is the sound of...

I like that. I think we need to remix that. Maybe that's another... We need to hire a

human, Andrew, to write a song.

Yes, exactly.

But Bobby, I want to say thanks for the tip, Bobby, because... And I'm also realizing something. Old Bobby Pape is getting a lot of play on the show because I think I might have misattributed something to him yesterday. I think it might have been our friend Chris, who actually said the show is 17 years old. I was talking to both of them after the Philly show, and I think I misremembered who had clarified for me that the show is nearly 17 years old. I think that might have been our friend Chris.

Is this Chris from New York who is in the beer culture? Okay, gotcha, yeah.

Mr. Beer. Gotcha.

Hi, Chris. I'm sorry I missed everybody.

So anyway, that's the sound. I can't tell you how friggin' stoked I was when I... And by the way, because when you make a voice memo, it just if you don't title it if you don't label it it just labels it with whatever the street is oh yeah and it labeled it with a street in like california gull avenue which so i was very confused i was like why do i have all these recordings on gull avenue it it had misplaced it in terms of geography but it was in fact the sound that i was trying to find so i don't know

if i've told you about this but i have been uh messing around with the um google wallet i've been playing around in the Google wallet space. So this is basically the equivalent of you Apple users using your iPhones to pay for things like groceries. I had not used my phone as a payment system ever until, did I tell you about this? I think I must have mentioned it on the show because tedium like this does not go by without note in my world. I don't know, maybe a couple of months ago, I had this moment where I briefly thought I had forgotten my wallet as I walked into the grocery store, realized I hadn't forgotten my wallet, but took it as a moment to learn and said, well, what if I did lose my wallet in this case? Would I be set up to pay with my phone? So I quickly set myself up to pay.

with my phone by entering my credit card information into my phone. I've been loving it, Jerry. I love just waving my phone in front of the little digital, what do you call them, pieces of shit, I believe, POS devices and having my groceries and immediately sort of getting a receipt on my phone. And I love tracking everything, except when I must have done it the other day and then it automatically gave me a um kind of a a recent usage history and she said here are some purchases you've made recently and one of them was 40 to a black sorority in the south somewhere and i was like why is and i'm i'm looking unfortunately i can't seem to be i can't seem to access it on the fly but i like i'm googling it and i'm like did i buy did i like did i buy cookies or a car wash or some sort of like fundraiser thing and i could not figure it out my phone unfortunately is restarting so i may not get the name of it i'm i'm guessing it might be i'm not familiar enough with that world but i and i'm just like but what could this be and it was 40 dollars and i'm and And then I start like kind of – I look at my own Google calendar. I'm like, where was I on this day? And I realize, oh, this is the day that I'm leaving for Croatia. At first I thought it might be some international thing. But what it was – and I still don't have a good answer for it, but I kind of did some cross-checking with my bank records. It was actually me refilling my Orca card, which is the card that you use in Seattle to use public transportation, trains, buses, whatever. You load money under your Orca card. And there must be some sort of glitch in the system, because in my bank account, that $40 definitely went to the City of Seattle's Orca card program. But in my Google wallet, it looks like I'm supporting a black sorority. Huh. It's going to, like, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority or something? That's what I'm looking up. I'm sorry I don't have more details. I realize this story would be better if I had the actual name of it. That's very strange. Freaking up here.

You would think with things being digital the way they are that there would not be that sort of confusion.

Yeah, but I'm really, just to reiterate again as I sort of buy myself some time here, I'm loving it. Are you like kind of 100% paying with your phone these days or what?

Oh, I haven't had a debit card in years. You're just using that. I mean, that's true. I lost my debit card. It was not stolen. I just don't know where it is. And instead of getting a new one sent to me And having to re-enter all the numbers I've just not had a debit card for years So I just use my phone I mean I have credit cards and stuff But for any debit purchase I just do tap with my phone And the problem is I think I mentioned this on the show before There's something about the way my iPhone is set up That after I place my phone on the little Wherever the tap thing is It then wants me to do my face ID to log in Oh yeah And so I have to hold it right up to my face. But what it looks like always to the person who I'm purchasing something from is that I'm confused about the tap every time, 100% of the time this happens. So I go, like, put the phone down, and then I have to, like, stare at it and make, like, blue steel. And then they go, like, oh, no, you've got to hold it on this part of the device. And I'm like, I know, it's just doing a thing. I'm just bear with me. Okay, Grandpa, let's get you back to bed. Let's get you back to bed. Exactly, exactly. So I do use that. What I need to do is get it going on my watch, and that's what Becca has. Right, right, right. That's the move right there. We'll go on a jog, and then we'll be done. We'll be getting coffee, and then her watch is fully integrated. That's really traveling light. Nice, yeah, definitely. Love it.

Well, anyway, I'm sorry I can't find the name in that sorority, but I just want you to know that I'm out here being the change I want to see in the world. I'm supporting Orca and all kinds of sororities around the country.

hey let's thank some daily donors i don't know if these folks use their watch or their phone or good old-fashioned cash on the barrel head it's probably not door number

do we accept cash on the barrel head do we have a barrel head ask john john where's our barrel

head first thing get a barrel head steal a barrel get start accepting cash on it that's right these folks are donating to TVTL and it is how we have been doing this show for now almost 17 years I've learned recently and we really want to thank them want to thank Erica Peterson who's in Fairfax California thank you Erica now I wonder if that means the Fairfax a neighborhood of Los Angeles or if that means there's a different city called Fairfax I don't know do you

You want me to look it up?

Sure, while I'm thanking Sean Savage, who's in Los Angeles, California, you know where that is. That's a slam dunk. Hey, look, it's our friend Larry Asher in Seattle, Washington, our pal who brought us once to the School of Visual Concepts, I believe. That's right, exactly, to talk about our audio-only concept.

It looks like Fairfax, by the way. That was a good time. I don't mean to be dismissive of it, and I'm forever indebted to Larry.

No, I think what you're reacting to is the feeling of us being in front of people talking and the general bad feeling that we take away from that, right?

I remember, actually, I was pretty happy with that presentation, not to get too high on our own supply. I thought I did a bad job. Yes, but all eyes were on me, Luke, and that's what was important. The worse you do, the better I look. It looks like Fairfax, California is up north. Yeah, I appreciate you taking a dive on that for me. It's up north by San Francisco. So it looks like it's kind of in the Bay Area, Fairfax is. So that's interesting. Yes.

Well, thanks, Erica. Thanks also to Gary Raskin, who's in Carlsbad, California. Wow. Home of which celebrity, Andrew, who I was once on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me With. Okay. And we talked about the topic of skateboarding.

Okay. I know this, but it wasn't Tony Hawk. It was Tony Hawk. It was Tony Hawk. It absolutely was Tony Hawk. Okay, I got there. Very well played. Well, it was a very good hint.

I think he lives in Carlsbad, and also that is, I believe, where Legoland is. And, critically, where Gary Raskin is. Thanks, Gary. Terry Graneo, or Granillo. I'm thinking Graneo. Is in two L's together. That's usually we get that Graneo sound. Is in North Bend, Washington. That's Mighty Fine Pie.

mighty fine pie oh right of course twin peaks land there i knew that i've never even seen one

episode of twin peaks but i do have a coffee mug from that cafe in north bend where i believe somebody says that's mighty fine yeah it'd be agent dale cooper uh-huh uh thanks terry thanks

to sue lad who's in santa fe new mexico are you gonna dress up like um agent cooper for halloween this year luke what are your um am i going to dress up i don't think i can pull off a kyle

mclaughlin even though he's a fellow graduate from the university of washington oh i did not know that i wonder if genevieve knows that maybe she should he is one of those people who does not appear to be aging at the same rate as the rest of us and he is an absolute stitch on

tiktok he is he is i don't follow him but a lot of that ends up in my feed he's deeply weird and the thing about him is he's not um the thing about him is it's not like he's one of those people who looks like he's not aging he's just aging beautifully like that's kind of the difference

right like i mean yes he still looks young gold bloom type situation yeah like already started

yeah yeah exactly like i i actually think the the the problem is when you have the and i don't know why he's got to catch a stray here but he's fine um like the tom cruises barack obama yeah famously did not age um but uh but actually that's a good example of somebody who did age quickly in the presidency but i still think like you believe that was gracefully and very handsomely whereas you the tom cruisers of the world who are like it seems like they're doing everything they can to like sort of stop the dam i picture them like a cartoon sort of like rob low yes their fingers and these holes in the dam and it's kind of like that's not that don't don't try to stop the process but i do admire those who just can like age you know graciously and gracefully and are already good looking so good for them i know it it's it's it just feels a little unfair though

to me that kyle mclaughlin is and jeff goldblum have both had the life they've had and somehow the universe and clune dog too clune dog millionaire it's like come on okay enough they've had it good enough all good for long enough all good have i want something to fall

off of george yeah but all good guys though right is there something about that i think i don't think i've ever heard anything bad like kyle mclaughlin especially like i think i think everybody's got very great in portlandia by the way she's so good right the mayor sometimes um but no i i don't think and maybe you know somebody will say hey what about this but no i'm pretty sure all three of those guys don't have i think when you hear stories about them that they're they're nice guys celebrity didn't destroy them um and that maybe there's a lesson there there's something about growing old gracefully and being just kind and down to earth.

And it explains why I'm decomposing that.

Because I'm a horrific person off camera. But your nose is on your cheek. You might want to move that over a little bit. Thank you. Do you think that Ray Gunn is going to be the number one? I don't know why I'm obsessed with this, but Ray Gunn is going to be the number one costume this year for Halloween, right? Oh, great.

That's a great point, because it's doable, it's quickly identified as the person you're being. All you've got to do is get a green sweatsuit or whatever, and a hat. That's a really good one. Yeah, you know, I'm going to be doing, I will be doing Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me that night, in Chicago, and I am wondering if it would be, now that I've got the bug, after dressing up as Benjamin Franklin,

Oh, did you catch a bug from that costume? I wondered about that.

I actually went and tried on your Phantom of the Opera costume later.

Oh, no, you really got the bug. That was a big mistake. Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, I don't even know. I'm not going to do Ben Franklin because I legitimately don't want to put that costume back on. It's uncomfortable.

Yeah.

But I don't, yeah, I'm trying to think who's big in the zeitgeist right now.

That's where, and maybe, you know, I was thinking about Ray Gunn, and I had that ready to go, and maybe I've pushed the show to an uncomfortable place because I'm so big. Oh, I know who I could be. Yeah, who are you thinking? Like, what is in the zeitgeist?

No one would get it, but I could be Adam Driver's character from Megalopolis. Sure, yeah. I'm just holding like a T-square that I think he's holding in some of the promotional photography. Can I just play you this? Yeah. I had to load this clip in. This is a clip from Megalopolis. I did not go see Megalopolis yesterday because it was a gorgeous day. I don't understand weather, Andrew, because it was like summer yesterday. It was beautiful and brilliant, and then today it's miserable. Maybe today is the day for me to go see Megalopolis. But this is a clip. I don't know, have you seen this one going around? This is where Adam Driver's character is talking to, I believe it's his love interest, and he's chastising her for being sort of vapid in his opinion. Did you say you've seen this clip?

No, I haven't seen any clips at all. I've just seen some stills here and there.

This, well, I don't want to put my thumb on the scale. I'm just going to play this for you, okay? So, again, I believe Adam Driver's character is an architect who's got real big ideas about this city called New Rome.

Okay.

And has no time for trivial conversations or dilettantes or the like. And this is his love interest, who he thinks is too trivial. Take a listen. This is real, okay? I want to be clear. This is real.

Medical school entitles you to plow through the riches of my Amazonian mind?

Entitles me?

Yes.

Entitles me?

Yes.

Entitles me?

Yes.

You have no idea about me. You think I am nothing, just a socialite?

No, not nothing, but I reserve my time for people who can think about science and literature and architecture and art. You find me cruel, selfish, and unfeeling? I am. I work without caring what happens to either of us. So go back to the club, bear it all, and stalk the kind of people that you enjoy.

Fine.

Go back to the club. What is he doing there?

Like, you know what he's doing is a character that he once did on SNL where he plays like a there will be blood kind of dad that comes to like when your dad comes to school to talk about what they do for their job day. I don't think I've ever I definitely have not seen that sketch. Let's see, dad at school. It's I feel like, OK, I'll play this for you a little bit. This is, I think, kind of the same character. Like, I think Adam Driver did this as a joke on SNL and then adopted some part of it for this Francis Ford Coppola movie.

And in my opinion, that's how we make the fire go away.

Oh, wow. Simply wow. Thank you so much to Samantha's dad for that enlightening demonstration. All right, class, to continue our career day presentations, we will now turn it over to Mordecai's father, Abraham H. Parnassus.

dude what does your dad even do i don't want to talk about it harry's like super old is that true

i don't know he's a dad dads are old

greetings children i'm mordecai's father hello boy how are you this is adam driver this is adam

driver with just like a shock of long white hair he looks like he's about 85 he's got a cane he's

talking to pete davidson his son look at your father boy i see you man all right uh mr parnassus

why don't you tell us about what you do for a living hear me now children for my occupation is

of much import for 82 years i've been an oil man a baron some have called me now what does an oil baron do the answer crush your enemies grind their bones into

dirt. Make them regret they were ever born. Oh, sick. Wow. Right into the dirt. Now, if

the kids want to pursue a career in oil, what kind of traits would serve them well? Oil

is not for the weak. It is the earth's milk, and only the strong may suckle at mother's

teeth. Okay, so that's the SNL character. Don't you think there's a little bit of that going on in this medical school entitles you to plow through the riches of my emersonian mind also going to medical school entitles you to plow through the riches of my emersonian mind emerson

real line i thought he was saying amazonian i'm like that can't be right and i saw it like

annotated somewhere and i believe he's saying emersonian okay i also cannot get over the way He says club. Like, this just feels like he really improv-ed this. I am. I work without caring what happens to either of us. So go back to the club.

Go back to the club. Go back to the club. I think I like, I think that the Megalopolis one is funnier. One thing about the SNL, I want to make sure that I'm not missing something. I just had a thought. I love that 90% of the SNL that I'm exposed to is actually just the audio that you play for me on the show. It's like the modern equivalent of my friend Tony playing the White Album for me over the phone. Yes, that's a non-sarcastic sentiment for a change. I actually do enjoy this process, but I want to make sure that I understand the SNL sketch okay. That is not a parody of anything directly, right? And I think those are my favorite, or is it?

it's not a parody of I mean what he is is a Daniel Plainview esque character I think that the sketch idea was what if the kid from There Will Be Blood was going to a modern high school and his dad came in to talk about work

but it's not like this but this particular sketch didn't come out like when that movie was released or this is just like years later sort of a weird

just an SNL writer just had it kicking around in their brain and I think Adam Driver is pretty good in it but I think you're right I think Megalopolis is actually more humorous without attempting to be.

After our conversation yesterday, I had not given Megalopolis a lot of thought. Well, we already went through my beat-by-beat sort of journey with the news coverage of it yesterday. But I woke up this morning, one of the first things I said to Genevieve, and I was not dreaming about it. I don't know why, but one of the first things I said to Genevieve was, I guess we're going to go see Megalopolis, aren't we? And she said, I'm not going to see that. And I said, oh, okay, well, maybe I am. You kind of talked me out of the Joker yesterday, knowing that even people who like musicals are turning their nose up at this, and I am not somebody who likes musicals. So if it's not that, I've got to see something in the theaters this fall. It's a great season to go see movies. So I guess I'm going to go see Megalopolis. Are you still planning on seeing it, too?

I think I'm going to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on Saturday with Becca. We've had a plan to do that for a while. and then maybe after that at some point in the next... I mean, today would be an ideal day because it is just absolutely miserable here. But you know what I have to do today, Andrew, is I have to figure out some way to get the people at Xfinity on the telephone. And I have not been able to do this yet. Here's what happened yesterday.

They don't have telephones, I don't think.

The guy was here leveling out some parts of the yard. I'm putting a little road in so that there's access to the house if you don't want to go down these very steep stairs and other things. And the last time, and I really like this dude that's been out here doing the excavating. He's a really cool guy. I really like him. But the last time he was here, he somehow managed to dig up the cable line. It's a conduit. It's orange, and it is buried underground, and it has the coax cable that goes to the house. He accidentally dug it up. And there was an abrasion on it And it made it so that the cable didn't work in the house And I had to have Xfinity come out And luckily got a very helpful dude And we basically like Pulled a new Section of coax cable Through this thing, reburied it Everything was great, and yesterday I said to the guy, let's really Try to not dig that Cable back up, please And he said, okay, and now My mistake was, I didn't know exactly where it was so I didn't have it marked clearly for him so that's kind of on me but I'm here watching him and I'm just getting I'm literally getting so nervous every time this big earth scooper goes into the ground I'm like it's either going to dig up the sewer line or it's going to dig up this cable and so I've eventually become so kind of uh anxious about this that I just and I had to run some errands in town so I just like went down to town just like I wanted to come back later when it was all said and done and i get a text from him i think i can't remember it was right before

after you and John and I were meeting, and he says something like, well, I did find that. I found that conduit. I was like, we were hoping not

to find that conduit. Yeah, that wasn't the mission.

No, no, no. This wasn't a game. Right. And he goes, but I think it's okay. It seems okay at the house, because there's a little bit of the coax cable. It goes underground, it goes under a driveway, and then it pops back up at the house and goes into the house. But there's some

slack built in, right? So that's what he said. But there's some slack built in, so that's why he said it's okay at the house. It's not like he pulled it in one place. Yeah, like it came detached.

Yeah, it still, it looks, if you were just to go over to where it's entering the house, it looks fine. If you go in the house and you turn on the TV, it doesn't look fine. There is no signal anymore. Now, this could have been a lot worse. I still have the internet, obviously. I'm talking to you. And if I have to choose between having the internet and having my television working, this is definitely much less of a disruption in my life. But it's still kind of a bummer. And it involves me entering into the darkest ring of hell. which is trying to communicate with Xfinity. And Andrew, when I tell you they have gotten worse since the last time you dealt with them, it is just, it's every year they say, how do we become less helpful to the public who's paying an exorbitant amount of money for this service? How can we do less this year than we did last year? And they're doing, they're accomplishing it. So I have to kind of tip my cap to them on that. But it is impossible to get a human being. so the first thing that happens is they want you to quote-unquote troubleshoot the thing they don't want you talking to a person or they don't want to send somebody out they want you to figure it out by unplugging and replugging the thing that works and so you can't even get to the what i was trying to do was schedule a repair i know exactly what i sent you a photo yesterday i know exactly what the problem is it's this giant section of orange pipe that's been ripped out of the earth um but i'm just trying to go online and just schedule a repair appointment just get someone to come out and basically do what the guy did a year ago i know exactly what the problem is we just need to redo that it's gonna cost me 75 bucks or whatever but it won't let me it won't even get me to the like schedule an appointment thing on the internet because it keeps wanting to do like a troubleshoot it wants to reset and it wants to like talk to my cable box and then it like i'm looking at their website and it's showing me these steps but it won't do the steps that it tells me it's going to do so in other words i can't schedule this through the website because it sends a message to my box it gets no response and then it just does this wheel of death forever it won't get me to the page where i could then say please come out on tuesday but also you can't get a human being on the phone because it says go to the website it's constantly shunting you back to the website it uh it said the wait time yesterday afternoon Well, first of all, it said the wait time was going to be an hour. So I just put it on speakerphone. I was just doing my thing in my house. At about 55 minutes, guess what it did? Just hung up on me. Just kicked me off. So I was like, okay, I guess I'll just do this again. So I go back on hold for another 50 minutes. Guess what it does? Literally just hangs up on me. There's something in the system that after you've been on hold for a certain amount of time, it doesn't disconnect the line. It just, the very annoying hold music punctuated by a woman who's like about this far off mic going, we have heard that there is some outages in certain areas. We apologize for the delay. Like you just hear that woman about every 45 seconds coming in amidst this terrible hold music.

And then it just goes, it just turns off. It's muted, but the line, the numbers are still counting up. You're still on the call with him. That happened to me twice. so then it said i called it back again and it said um well your wait time is going to be like longer than 50 minutes do you want to have us call you back and i said okay fine so i hit that button and then it says there are no we cannot call you back today do you want us to call you back monday tuesday wednesday like it won't even give me a call wouldn't even give me a call back yesterday because there was like it was so backlogged and it wouldn't even and so yesterday

was thursday so it honestly didn't even give friday as like you're gonna they just started

with monday as if you have it might have given it might have given like saturday i don't even think it was for i don't know it was it was let me just say it was deeply frustrating because i wanted to get a call back yesterday and uh and they were at the very least they were shuffling me off to today a call back today um and so the funniest thing is if you go into xfinity and you're in the like the help area and you type in it's like what do you need and you type in human in all caps and then it shows you all of the other posts it's just all redacted because it's all swearing it's hundreds of posts where people are like i want to talk to and then it just says redacted for language it doesn't say redacted but it's just like you know like it's basically like it's actually kind of cathartic to go into this part of the

xfinity website where people are just losing their damn minds at xfinity and then xfinity for some stupid reason leaves the posts up but then takes out all the swears it's a very odd little corner of the internet but um where i currently am andrew is i have internet obviously so that's sort of fine the tv thing is just like last night i wanted to watch our friend chris hayes on television i want to watch his show but what you know i did instead i read his very very good book the siren song so i guess i don't know maybe it's not the worst thing for me to not have ready access to television maybe i'll become a a more thoughtful person um between now and whenever it is i can get the people back out here to take a look at this

you know you said that it's gotten worse since the last time i tried to call them i mean honestly it has been that bad for years and so i haven't had to call them for a while because i no longer am an xfinity customer and it feels so good to say that like i first of all i'm jealous by the

Wait, wait, I did. I literally cut the cord yesterday.

I was going to say that. You literally cut the cord already. Like, you know what it'll be. Here's the deal. And I know that you've explained, and I truly do understand. I'm not saying this just to be condescending. But I'm also being condescending because I like that. But I do understand the desire to maintain the ability to just sort of flip through the channels. That is a nice thing that feels like watching TV to people of your and my generation. Having said that, it is the year 2024. You're in your mid to late 40s. I think you still have some good years in you. And so, therefore, it is my prediction that at some point during your life, cable is going to no longer be a part of your life. Like, with smart TVs, and I know you have a new smart TV, and I understand why you're, like, sort of reluctant to get into this world. But with all of the apps that you automatically, you know, that are kind of automatically come with your TV or very easily or installed on your television, like there is a service you can probably buy. That's probably a little bit expensive. That does have MSNBC and it's through an app and it probably also has maybe some sporting stuff and other otherwise. I know I'm hearing from more and more people who are saying I am so sick of paying for all of these individual services. I feel like the pendulum in some people is swinging back towards just maybe I should go back to cable. But the beauty of not having cable is not having to give a lot of money. And Xfinity is so expensive to a company that when you try to call them, they just give you the equivalent of a huge inflated middle finger that says we do not even need to pretend. Like, we are Paul Verhoeven levels of futuristic, what's the word I'm looking for, dystopia. It's just, it is beyond dystopia when you get caught. And Xfinity has been, of all of my experiences with this, Xfinity is the absolute worst. It will feel so good when you are finally there just to say, you know what? I'm ready to end the service. And you know what the irony will be? You will be put in contact with a human being Who will probably try to talk you out of that Of course And it will be so good to see

It'll probably be Tom Karishanak The executive vice president And chief customer experience officer At Comcast I was looking at a picture Of this jabroni yesterday on the website And if it wouldn't have broken my computer I wanted to punch his headshot Because it's like How dare you, sir I mean, I guess I kind of admire the bravery. Like, what are you doing putting your picture on this website? Yeah, put your address. As the chief customer experience officer, no one in history has had a good experience as a customer with this company. And you're right. At some point, because here is, I don't even flip the channels. I literally, I never have a time where I'm like, huh, I wonder what's on. It's all either like taped, it's DVR'd or whatever the term is now. So it's like, I tape Chris's show, I tape every Mariner game, every Seahawk game, I'm either live sports or MSNBC on recording, that's all I watch. And like the occasional Dateline NBC or the first 48, but it's all just saved on the thing. It's, other than the live sports, there's nothing that I'm ever watching exactly as it's happening. So it will only be a matter of time. The problem right now is I couldn't even, if I wanted to sign up for that, there's no internet. I guess, could I do it on Wi-Fi?

Yes, no, that's the whole thing. You can just do it. I mean, all of our televisions, I mean, all, we have two TVs in our house. But sometimes I kind of forget how we live in the future. It's like those two TVs that feel as plugged into me as if we had a cable service.

are just living on wi-fi like it's even just nice to know that and like there's never a glitch it's

never a problem or a blessing andrew am i getting is this the good part is this the good place is

that that you're being forced by the insulting actions of this company like i'm so i think food i'm now i'm just trying to do your shopping for you because i know like sling tv has msnbc and i think that's like something like 40 50 bucks a month or something no oprah no you don't oprah But I think the big thing for you is figuring out local sports, because I know that you don't want to do what I do, which is having which is having to, like, dial up illegal streams for sporting events. And then, like, I got to admit, my Monday night football experience was a little bit rough for the first quarter because it kept freezing on me. And it took me quite some time to find, like, a stream that didn't quit on me. Why are you quitting on me? And so I could not see you Going through all of that every time you just want to sit down And watch a football game you want something that is Like sort of stable and reliable But I'm pretty sure that if you go the Fubo Route which is not cheap I even think That's like 80 bucks a month or something You get the local sports you at least get Route I don't know what that would do for you As far as Seahawks games But then I think you're also going to get your MSNBC I know you love your Fox News And your

Do I get One American Network?

That's the one I was looking for. You'll probably get your One America Network. Okay, okay. You in my Newsmax? I just think that, like I say, it's going to happen for you eventually, and maybe use your rage right now to make the leap.

You know, honestly, I could focus my rage into something productive, which is doing some research this afternoon. Because, yeah, that's the only thing that's happening in that house that got messed up from this thing is the coaxial cable. is no longer sending a live stream to that thing. But you're right. That is a dumb way for this to work. What I really should do is get on there, figure out what can I get on old Fubo TV? How do I get old MSNBC? I could also just ask Chris to call me each night after the show and kind of give me the broad strokes. By the way, his book is really good. Highly, highly recommend it. It's absolutely fascinating. But yeah, you know what? It's a rainy, terrible, cold, dark Friday afternoon, Andrew. You know what I think I'm going to do? I think I'm going to make some soup. And by make some soup, I mean I have a pre-made thing of minestrone soup that I got at the grocery store that's in the fridge.

Sounds good.

I'm going to do that. I'm going to get cozy, put a little fire on in the fireplace, and do some hardcore researching on what my options are. I guess the problem is I do still use those people for Internet, But if I could just go down to only Internet from them, that would be a big improvement.

Or I'm telling you, man. And again, now, I don't think this is maybe where I need to take the podcast, but I would not I would look at other options because the whole point is cut Xfinity out of your goddamn life. And it felt so good to do that. I use CenturyLink now. I get incredibly fast Internet through CenturyLink, faster than I've ever had in my life. And they're just super, super easy to work with.

By the way, yesterday, Xfinity had the temerity to send me a survey about how it was going for me as a customer.

Oh, my God. Oh, God. You've got to cut these people out of your life.

Hi, Xfinity here. Please provide feedback on your most recent experience with Xfinity. Thinking about your phone call with us, how likely are you to recommend Xfinity to friends and family? They said reply zero, not at all, to 10, extremely likely. Message and data rates apply. I put zero, and then I said, and I hit send, and then I went, actually, negative five. Yeah, right. I'm just yelling at a bot now. That's what my life is.

Yeah. Oh, it's so frustrating.

Here I go once again with the email. Every week, I hope that it's from a female. No, man. It's not from a female.

All right. Emails or V-mails to wrap the week up.

Yes. Do we have time for two today? I'm going to try to work into two here. um one voicemail comes from our pal veronique we were talking about veronique uh on the show yesterday she and her husband found themselves in moving down to from seattle to florida in recent years and now have become victims of all of the just massive flooding down there and as we mentioned on the show veronique um basically veronique and d'artagnan both lost the house that they were living in with her stepdad like just like literally did not have a place to live And so we were kind of sharing that story, and Veronique heard it and called in with a little follow-up.

Hey there, this is Veronique. I just wanted to call in and first say thank you.

so much for giving us a shout out on the show um had me crying in the home depot i've done that um i thank you that's all um and also i wanted to give an update we are um we're moving to nagadoosh uh louisiana my my sister did start a gofundme I posted it on Facebook. I also put it on my page, and I think somebody put it on the Slack channel. So it really is super embarrassing. But every dollar helps because I'm spending a fortune at the laundromat and moving, and our house is just, well, it's gone. So we're going to hit the road and stay in a room until we can find jobs in our own place in Nagadoosh. spelled Natchitotis yeah we only pronounced Nagadish I don't know alright love you guys you're the best and the tens I love the tens so much about to get cut off y'all are just fucking fantastic sorry I swore the amount of support has been amazing and you've created quite the beautiful community so be proud of yourself oh

take care out there Veronique we're thinking about you and everybody i know that that you're one of many people out there um in our listening audience who are who are dealing with the aftermath of that storm so

good luck to you i also really thought it was called natchadoches you actually know the place she's speaking of well i've seen it written down i always thought it was called natchadoches oh well there you go so you learn something yeah veronique we're thinking about you and d'artagnan and and again as you said andrew everybody else out in our listening audience who's been impacted by this. We'll be sending you the best thoughts that we can. All right, you said you had two emails today.

Yeah, I'll play another one here. This is from, I think it was last week. Yeah, you were, I don't know, last week or the week before when you were doing some of your coverage for CBS from the UN. We were joking around about a special UN coffee shop. I think it was my award-winning joke, Coffee Anon, as a possible name for a coffee shop in the U.N. And we got this voicemail from listener Laura.

Hi, it's Laura from Tucson. Your story or your joke about creating a U.N. coffee shop made me sort of nostalgic because in 2002, I worked not at the official U.N. Starbucks. I don't think that was a thing, but I worked at the closest Starbucks to the U.N., and so many of the things that made this a sort of nightmare visit for Luke made this the most amazing job, because what would happen was the, you know, somebody important would come through, or, you know, it was 2002, so everybody was just, like, constantly on alert. we would get we would just get shut down like we would get locked down for reasons that were not explained to us but basically we would get some sort of signal we would lock the whole thing down and it was magical because all we had to do was drink coffee and they still had the printed copies of the New York Times that they sold in Starbucks and so I would just make myself a coffee and read the New York Times and I would get paid for it and it was so wonderful and it was like all i've ever wanted from a job really um and uh of course there was always like one co-worker who was like we need to open back up um i was like don't ruin this for me don't ruin it so yeah there there there was a un coffee shop but uh sadly i don't work there anymore power up and

it wasn't called coffee and on i uh that that part about the newspaper i remember for a while

Bon T. Moon? That's right. Maybe Bon T. Moon?

Yeah, didn't we turn that into a Bon Mii sandwich shop, I think, the last time we tried this? I don't know, it was a we thing. Oh, you're going to distance yourself from that gold? Okay, then. Your funeral.

By the way, that's exactly the kind of employee I was when I had jobs like that. Like when I worked at Bumpy's Fruit and Yogurt, and we would put the chairs up. The place closed at 10 in the summer. we would put the chairs up at like nine we would dim the lights we would do everything we could to make it look uninviting and uh and like yeah there are some people i bet you'd be more this way andrew like you're kind of like well if i'm here i want to be productive the time goes faster when i'm working i you know and i was like that was never my move i was like i was like please please can i just hide in the back of the store yeah it depends if there's something to keep you

occupied. The thing that struck me about Laura's story was

the newspaper too i remember there was a time when like the the most reliable place you could get a new york times was maybe going into a starbucks i think i bought i think i've bought more newspapers from starbucks than coffee probably in my lifetime um but man just thinking about that those very early 2000s 2002 is when laura put that story and i it for me i remember wandering around boston there was something about her mentioning that newspaper that reminded me like i always had a boston globe folded in half underneath my arm you know like it was just like It was almost like I don't think it was an affectation. I really did like reading it, but it really was like a kind of a comforting thing. Like wherever I landed, if I landed for a little bit, I could just like read, you know, I had I mean, I guess I this is pre smartphone for me. I don't think I had a smartphone until like 2003 or 2000 way later than that, possibly. And so I didn't constantly have like entertainment in my pocket. I carried around the Boston Globe constantly. And if I sat down to eat a bagel or a lunch or had to get on the train or whatever it was, you always had your newspaper with you. It sounds like an affectation now, but I do miss it. It was a very cozy feeling.

It's interesting because that's one of the things that's pointed out in Chris's new book because it's basically about the attention economy and the things that are competing for attention, which is mostly our phones these days. But he was making the point that to people who think that everybody on the subway looking at their phone is some sort of new thing. If you look at a picture from the 1930s, everyone on the subway is looking at their newspaper. Yeah. They're doing the same thing with just with the technology of the time.

Yeah. I've always said that because I remember talking to you about this a long time ago and sort of checking our own sort of assumptions about people because like – and I know I've given this example a million times. But you can take the exact same scene of a couple, I mean, almost any age, and you put them like in a breakfast diner somewhere on a Sunday morning. Right. And they're sitting there in silence, maybe eating their eggs, Benedict or whatever. But they each have a section of the newspaper, like sort of propped up in front of them. And they're just sort of eating in silence and reading the newspaper. That can be like such a romantic vision. But you replace those newspapers with phones and you're just like, what is wrong with the world today? like I've used that example for a long time I'm sure Chris credits me in the book I haven't looked at the credits page yet

you are in the acknowledgements I thought it would have been his kids but it was you

it's dedicated to me which I really appreciate for sort of giving him the seed of an idea here but yeah I do think that that perception of kind of like oh this digital age I will say this and I'm not somebody who tries to hang all of the ills of the world on modern technology I do wonder if I was somewhat better informed or better informed on things I wouldn't be otherwise when it was more finite, when it was a newspaper under my arm because the first thing I'm going to read is the stuff I'm going to read anyway, the major national headlines, the major local headlines but then if you are carrying that ragged newspaper around all day and on the train ride home, let's just say you've spent most of the stuff you were going to read anyway and now you have to go you're like reading like the back of the business page for some reason. You're like, I just need something to do with my eyes right now. You might accidentally read something you wouldn't otherwise. You're doing the

boggle game near the cartoons or the comics. You're doing the, you're illustrating an egg or whatever the hell goes on in there. Right, exactly. So, anyway. Alright, well, I think that we have put in a solid week of broadcasting, and it's time for me to go research FuboTV. I actually started, I'm gonna be honest with you, I started five minutes ago. So that's why you heard something in my voice change, because I'm fully in the world of Fubo research now. All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. We are going to be back here on Monday with more Imaginary Radio for you. Please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Hope you're doing okay if you're out there in the places that are still affected by Helene. For the rest of you, anyone who's capable of this right now, have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all. Power out.